Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to managing interactions with a consumer. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and systems for integrating communications between multiple systems and/or processes related to different aspects of financial transactions of the consumer.
During a typical consumer financial transaction, such as, for example, a purchase using a credit card, a number of different systems and processes handle or process data related to the consumer and/or the transaction. For example, a financial institution providing or issuing the credit card to the consumer can have one or more systems executing processes for recording the transaction, paying a merchant for the consumer's purchase, billing the consumer, etc. Other systems and/or processes may also be utilized at different times or upon the occurrence of different events through the span of the consumer's relationship with the financial institution. For example, various other processes and/or systems may be involved in handling opening of an account and/or issuance of a credit card or other instrument, activation of the card, renewal of the account or card, generation and/or printing of a statement of the account, etc.
However, these systems and/or processes consist of individual, stand-alone processes. That is, these processes do not interact and/or share data about the customer or transaction of the consumer or, at best, have very limited interaction. If these processes interact at all, it is by saving transaction data in one or more shared databases that may or may not be used by other processes. There is currently no management or oversight of interaction between these processes and/or systems.
Because of this limited interaction between the systems and/or processes handling different aspects of the financial transactions related to the consumer, the various individual systems and/or processes are blind to or unaware of the other processes and events occurring related to the consumer. As a result, significant marketing opportunities are lost.
Hence, there is a need for improved methods and systems for integrating communications between multiple systems and/or processes related to different aspects of financial transactions of a consumer.